Research Team Including Associate Professor of Mathematics Dr. Ben Allen Awarded Templeton Grant

Associate Professor of Mathematics – Dr. Benjamin Allen – will be working alongside a team of philosophers on the research entitled “The Emergence and Evolution of Goal-Directed Behavior in Collective Entities.”

The $600,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation will support the study for three years, encompassing research, workshops and a summer conference in June.

Led by Derek Skillings from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, Dr. Allen and two other Boston faculty – Patrick Forbes from Tufts University and Rory Smead, from Northeastern University, the team will focus on “superorganisms,” such as coral reefs.

The research aims to define in what ways the superorganisms live, grow and evolve – the ways in which they can be categorized as organisms, and the ways in which they are outliers, too. It will likely prove to be a challenge at first as well: an organism like a coral reef, which is both a living thing in itself and something that encompasses other living things, is not the easiest thing to model mathematically, Dr. Allen explained.

Associate Professor of Mathematics, Dr. Benjamin Allen.

He is excited to partner with his fellow researchers and explore the intersection of math and philosophy in this case. “Philosophy is a necessary piece of this work,” he added, “we have to define the meaning behind these things: what it means for organisms to act with a goal or a purpose.”

Looking Ahead

As Dr. Allen prepares for the new research, he is set to go on sabbatical in Fall 2025, where he plans to write his first book, encapsulating his work on evolutionary mathematical models that he has been developing for more than 10 years.

His past research includes a variety of frameworks that mathematically model collective purpose of living organisms – how they grow and evolve together – and can be used to map and track those behaviors across generations.

“I’ve been working on it since then,” he said, “now it’s time to put it all together.”

The Templeton Foundation offers grants in support of research and public engagement in its major funding areas, such as mathematical and physical sciences, life sciences, religion science and society and more in an effort to “open minds, deepen understanding, and inspire curiosity.”